[lbo-talk] Americans' class self-ID

SA s11131978 at gmail.com
Tue Mar 16 02:58:09 PDT 2010


brad bauerly wrote:


> Nope, this poll http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/17/rel4b.pdf

Hey, thanks for this, I hadn't seen this poll.


> shows
> that of self proclaimed TP activists (which we need to qualify because
> activists are almost always better off than the constituents)

The NYT poll I cited presented data on constituents - the 14% who followed news about and strongly supported the TP.


> 58% make less
> than $75,000 year. Clearly in the middle income group.

The problem with using income data for something like this is that regional and urban/rural differences cause incomes to vary enormously for people of the same class position. Your poll shows that "TP activists" and "All respondents," respectively, are: Urban: 9%/21%...Rural: 50%/38%. And TP activists are underrepresented in the high-CPI Northeast. Your poll confirms that TP activists have much more education than average. Education is a far better proxy for class position. Again, TPers' education profile puts them at about the 80% percentile.

SA



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